Acute shortage of doctors in state: Minister

Underlining the acute scarcity of doctors in Odisha, Health minister Damodar Rout said that its doctor-population ratio of 1:9, 504 and people hospital ratio of 1: 14, 251 is significantly lower than in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Kerala and Maharashtra.

Rout made the statement while responding to an un-starred question by independent MLA Pratap Chandra Sarangi in the State Assembly on Friday. He said the state has 32 district headquarters hospitals, 27 sub-divisional hospitals, 377 community health centres and 1226 primary health centres (new) totalling 1751 health centres. This apart there are 6,688 sub centres.

Out of 1317 sanctioned posts of doctors for primary health centres, 248 are lying vacant. While 140 doctor posts are lying vacant in primary health centres in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand have no vacancies; Kerala has more doctors in its primary health centres than its sanctioned strength. Bihar and Jharkhand have a similar situation.

The situation in Community Health Centres (CHCs) with regard to posting of specialists in different departments is grim. While there is a requirement of 1508 doctors in these centres in Odisha, only 908 out them have been sanctioned. Out of the 908 sanctioned posts, only 317 posts have been filled up leaving a vacancy of 591 posts. Shortage of specialists is particularly acute in departments like general surgery, gynaecology and paediatrics.

Though Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other states too face a shortage of specialists, the situation in these states is not as acute as that of Odisha, the minister said.